I've been wondering over the past week where in the hell that number came from. The original budget was $70 million, but it went over and QT himself placed it at around $83 million for the final tally. Now, all of a sudden, Box Office Mojo has had it listed as $100 million since Christmas Day.

They're very lucky that Tarantino is so loyal to them. I guess writing him a blank check and full creative control helps but I'd assume most studios would offer him that by now.

They're smart. Save for Death Proof (and that fiasco was blamed more on Rodriquez), the man makes them money. Good money. Plus the awards accolades that follows. Tarantino has achieved a status not since Kubrick. The madman genius who left to his own devices serves up films ripe for success critically and commercially. Few directors are truly household names. He's one of them.

Quentin won't leave the Weinsteins while they are still in business, be it at TWC or if they ultimately move elsewhere when it inevitably goes down in flames. Rodriguez still has strong ties with them as well, but he doesn't bring nearly as much attention and is almost self-sustaining these days with Troublemaker Studios. Their other fav helmer, Kevin Smith, is seemingly on the verge of retiring and is no longer a "sure thing".

If Tarantino stops being a sure thing (Something Kevin Smith has never been) and/or they start screwing him over, then yes he will leave. And find no problem getting other backers. As for Rodriquez, he left their company after Grindhouse for a couple of years. Like I said, he got the blame for that failure. That's why you saw him set up at Fox for awhile.

Also the concept was a nostalgic throwback to a specific kind of cinema experience most of the target audience would never have had, so the marketing had to go out of its way to explain what it was all about and why they thought it was a cool idea (and failed, based on the reports of people leaving after planet terror), and it cost about five times what it probably should've, given the concept. It was a massive self indulgent folly.

All that, along with the fact the Machete trailer was one of the few things everyone seemed to like, and that Tarantino's entry was widely disliked and showed him disappearing up his own arse like never before, makes it seem a bit unfair to pin the failure of it all solely on Rodriguez.

BlueLouBoyle, I got alot of flack from my mom when I declared that day the...Best Good Friday Ever! I also told her I was...Dying to see Grindhouse! I was in the...Doghouse that weekend after seeing...Grindhouse on one of the most holy days of the year.

Well to be fair, around that time Tarantino and Rodriguez projects were clearing $50m at the very least, so you'd imagine a team up movie would do at least that. It's kind of like a reverse Avengers - just like some point at that and say "Oh well obviously it was going to go through the roof", you can point at all this stuff and say "well obviously Grindhouse was going to bomb". Post hoc reasoning! C'est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.

The Devil Inside came out around the same time last year (IMDb says January 6th) and did reasonably well too. Perhaps this is turning out to be a good weekend on which to release horror movies as people are done with Christmas spirit and just want to watch people die horribly. Or maybe it just reflects how they're feeling about returning to their jobs.

Wow, DJANGO made $20 million. Nice one. And REACHER only fell 31%, one of the best holds of the top ten. It could make 90 million, although probably not 100. I wonder if that i will be good enough for a sequel.

Word of mouth has been quite good with regards to The Hobbit. I know two people who initially weren't going to see it and then did so because of what their friends were saying. Official reviewers seem to have been harsher on the movie than audiences.

Wow, DJANGO made $20 million. Nice one. And REACHER only fell 31%, one of the best holds of the top ten. It could make 90 million, although probably not 100. I wonder if that i will be good enough for a sequel.

Will Cruise insist on another, is the real question. That'll decide it.

Nothing sadly. Sometimes I go to the local cinema and I see either horror movies or Tyler Perry movies there. I hear that Tyler Perry is making a horror movie called Why Did I Get Buried?. Once that comes out, it'll be back to the status quo.

It can go either way when it comes to geek movies. Critics don't generally have as much investment in a franchise as the fans, and sometimes they'll give passes to movies that get the fans frothing at the mouth: Prometheus, Indy IV and Star Wars III come to mind. Other times (like this one) the fans are willing to forgive things that critics aren't.

It can go either way when it comes to geek movies. Critics don't generally have as much investment in a franchise as the fans, and sometimes they'll give passes to movies that get the fans frothing at the mouth: Prometheus, Indy IV and Star Wars III come to mind. Other times (like this one) the fans are willing to forgive things that critics aren't.

When we are judged by a superior race as violent and primitive, and our species is but minutes from extermination, it will be THE DARK KNIGHT RISES that proves to the invaders that our existence is justified.

Anecdotal, but Django showings in my area on Sunday evening were near sold out today. Not sure about Chainsaw. Could final numbers see the two switched? Or is the estimated 3 mil too big of a difference?

Just my gut feeling, but I doubt anyone's gonna go see it, buzz be damned. Hurt Locker won best picture and made like 12 million.

I dunno, people actively avoided movies about Iraq or the Afghan conflict, but now that we're more or less out of or leaving both countries, and we killed Osama real good, people might go to see this as a kind of virtual Victory Dance.

Box Office Mojo points out that Life Of Pi is raking it in overseas, and may finish up somewhere in the region of $500m worldwide.

I wonder if that's some small sign of where things are going. Everyone's been talking about how important overseas money has become in recent years, but this is a pretty striking example of Hollywood putting out a big budget movie that you could argue has more inherent appeal outside the US than within.

When you look at it: the main characters are Indian, it has exactly one white American cast member who has about five minutes of screentime, it features plenty of peans to non-western religions, and the rare occasion the movie features the American continent it's only for Canada and Mexico! And even though it's only done modestly well in the US it seems to have paid off.

I wonder if we'll ever reach the stage where Hollywood finds itself quite deliberately making movies with limited US appeal when they know they can rake it in worldwide.